TECHNOLOGY CAN STIFLE STUDENT LEARNING,
ACCORDING TO A STUDY BY IOWA STATE PROFESSORS

AMES, Iowa -- Technology can hinder learning, according to a new
study by two Iowa State University College of Education professors. Teachers
using technology for instruction often inadvertently bypass student learning
by emphasizing entertainment, efficiency, graphics, and ease of use over the
habits of the mind and sound teaching practices essential for deep
learning.

"Technology has great potential to motivate and engage students," said
Joanne Olson, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at Iowa
State, "but it can also change their fundamental ideas about the purpose of
schools, potentially to their own detriment. Technology in the classroom
often circumvents critical requirements of learning and can hide or even
inhibit students' thinking. In addition, evidence of student thinking is
often concealed, frequently leading teachers to develop an inflated
impression of student understanding."

When reviewing technology, the researchers say teachers should be wary of
using technology too far removed from students' conceptual understanding.
Olson and Clough stress that students need to understand the novel concepts
introduced by technology and then to link this new information to prior
understanding.

Olson and Clough also say that available technology should not determine
course content or activities. Too often, the fascination with technology and
its increasing affordability and efficiency seduce teachers into adopting it
with little or no consideration of how educational goals and learning will
be positively or negatively impacted.

The use of technology as "entertainment" or a motivational tool in the
classroom is not a defendable goal, the researchers note. Technology needs
to accentuate the research-based aspects of effective learning, such as
questioning prior ideas, making sense of new experiences, formulating new
connections and analyzing whether prior connections continue to make
sense.

Consider the trade-offs of technology on learning, they assert. For example,
a science project that encourages students to work with other students on
the Internet via e-mail may motivate students and lead to learning of
intended concepts, but does so to the potential detriment of other important
skills such as handwriting, listening and speaking.

Technology should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. Teachers need
to openly discuss the implementation of technologies without fear of being
labeled as backward.

Current technology education efforts often focus on how to use and integrate
technology. These efforts must devote at least equal attention to the nature
of the technologyits hidden assumptions and effects, how it changes the way
we think and act, and the pros and cons of these underlying
consequences.

"Our primary message," Clough says, "is for teachers and administrators to
take a critical, but not necessarily negative, perspective toward technology
and thus make wiser decisions regarding its use in education."